Claudia battened down her instinctive sense of outrage and revulsion, her anger at the way the girl was unwittingly intruding on the privacy of her lovemaking with Garth, defiling it almost, her training coming to the fore as she calmly ignored what the girl was saying.

"Never mind that, Katriona," Janice challenged her, reaching out before the girl could stop her and holding her wrist firmly with one hand while with the other she pushed up the fabric of her shirt to reveal a heartbreakingly fragile arm and its even more heartbreaking evidence of her drug use.

"She certainly doesn't use," she told the girl sharply, 'and neither would you if you had any brains. " "No?" the girl derided, tossing back the thick, heavy weight of her glossy, curly hair.

"Well, I've certainly got enough sense not to fall for that old line. What do you want?"

"You're on probation for soliciting," Janice reminded her.

"It's a condition of your probation that we see you."

"So, you've seen me." Katriona shrugged dismissively, then reached out to the dressing-table for a lipstick and started to apply it carefully to her soft, full mouth.

She was ftne-boned, her movements light and fluid like those of a dancer. Who was she, where had she come from and why. why did she stay here, living like this, when quite plainly.

Claudia reined her thoughts in. One of the first things she had learned was that it wasn't her role to judge or to question.

"You don't have to do this, Katriona," Janice told her quietly.

"An hour from now, you could be trapped in a car with a John who's got a knife at your throat and who's refusing to pay you for what you've done. Even if he does, you've got to get back here without any of the pimps catching you. Why bother when you could have a prescription for methadone and--' " Go into rehab? Forget it. "

"You're a fool, Katriona. One day, you're going to be like Lucy downstairs, too drugged out to bother closing your legs between punters, never mind getting dressed. Is that what you want?"

"I'll never be like Lucy," Katriona denied fiercely, her green eyes flashing with fury as she rounded on Janice.

"Now, get out of here.

Get out! And the next time," she commanded as Janice shrugged and started to head for the door, 'next time... send her."

Send her. Claudia blinked in astonishment as the other girl pointed towards her.

"I mean it," Katriona stressed.

"She gets in ... you don't. Understand?"

You're looking awfully pea ky darling. Is everything all right? "

"Everything's fine. Mummy," Claudia snapped, then regretted it as she saw the hurt expression on her mother's face.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, placing her hand on Jean Fulshaw's arm in a gesture of remorse.

"I'm... I'm just a bit tired, that's all and..."

Mentally, she gave herself a small shake. The last thing she wanted was to start feeling sorry for herself or to start complaining to her mother that she was missing Garth.

The regiment was in Northern Ireland. Garth had managed a snatched and unsatisfactory twenty-four-hours' leave before his departure, and they had made love with a passionate intensity, which, while physically fulfilling, had somehow left her feeling emotional and weepy.

It hadn't gone down very well at work when she had asked for leave herself at such short no tice. Eyes glistening with tears, she kissed her mother goodbye and watched as she climbed onto the train.

She had come up to London to spend the day with Claudia and do some shopping, but

Claudia simply hadn't been in the mood. The heavy cold she had had theprevious month had left her feeling lethargic and run-down. It hadn'thelped that one of the other probation officers had been transferred,leaving Claudia to take on most of his workload in addition to herown.

Janice might be right, she acknowledged wryly. Perhaps she really wasn't cut out to do the job.

"Don't take it home with you," Janice had advised her, but Claudia was finding it increasingly difficult to put up the necessary emotional barrier to separate herself from the problems of her clients, especially Katriona.

"You're becoming too involved," Janice had warned her and she was right. There was something about this particular girl, something compelling and haunting about the sheer, senseless waste and tragedy that her life had become.

"It doesn't have to be like this," Claudia had counselled her, forgetting her professionalism in her longing to be able to do something to help change things for her before it was too late.

"It's already too late," Janice had told her shortly when Claudia discussed the case with her, her emotions overcoming her awareness that

her supervisor already thought that she was overly emotional for the job.

But how much of that assessment was the truth and how much was caused by a not unnatural sense of resentment because of the way Katriona had insisted that the only person she would speak with was Claudia?

"She's doing it because she knows you're new to the job," Janice had warned her grimly, shortly after a case conference meeting, where it had been decided that in view of the rapport Claudia seemed to have established with Katriona, she be assigned as Katriona's permanent caseworker.

"Personally, I don't know why we are so accommodating with the girl," she had sniffed, but of course she did. They all did.

Katriona was playing a very dangerous game. In return for a certain amount of leeway as regards her own activities, she was supplying the police with information on a large ring of drug suppliers who, like her, operated in the sprawling underworld the flats had become.

"You'll have to be careful," Claudia had warned her when Katriona had talked derisively to her about how easy it was to get men to confide in her.

"If they find out..." But Katriona had simply laughed.

"They won't. To them I'm just another quick. fuck. They seem to forget that while I've got my mouth wrapped round their cock, I might not be able to talk, but I can still listen, and anyway, what can they do?"

She had shrugged.

"Nothing. I know too much. Not like you," she had taunted Claudia.

"You know nothing. How old were you when you lost your virginity?" she had demanded.

Claudia had shaken her head but had still not quite been able to stop herself from blushing.

Katriona sometimes seemed more interested in cross-questioning Claudia about her life than in talking about her own.

"Mummy and Daddy/ she had mimicked once.

"I'll bet they spoiled you rotten, didn't they? And I'll bet he does, too, doesn't he?" she had challenged as she grabbed hold of Claudia's hand and looked at her wedding ring, demanding, "What's he like... is he any good in bed?

God, why am I asking you that? If he is, you know what that means, don't you? " she had taunted.

"They don't get to know what turns a woman on by saving themselves for their little bridey wifey, you know.

"Has he ever used a pro? How do you know? Have you ever asked him?"

she had asked as Claudia shook her head during one meeting, then had laughed when Claudia started to gather up her papers.

"Hit a nerve there, didn't I?" she had crowed.

"They all do it, you know," she had added softly.

"No matter how respectable, how faithful, how loving they make out they are, they all do it. For all you know, he could be a regular client... one of my clients...."

She had paused, waiting, for even though Claudia had begun to get the measure of her and to know how much Katriona loved getting her off guard, she had still risen to the bait and returned coldly, "I very much doubt it. Garth is in the army. He rarely comes to London and--' " Oh, the army. Well, they're the worst of the lot," Katriona had interrupted her, her mouth curving in a triumphant smile, her green cat's eyes glittering with the onset of the craving she still told herself she could control.

"How did you meet him?" she had asked casually, but Claudia had got herself back under control.

Katriona had a long, raw wound on her left arm that looked as though it had been caused by a knife. Even as she made that judgement, Claudia was aware of just how much she had learned already. Six months ago, she wouldn't have known what a knife wound looked like, never mind instantly recognise one.

"Lucy did it," Katriona told her carelessly as she saw Claudia frowning at it.

"It looks nasty," Claudia commented.

"Has anyone seen it?"

"Sure... every punter I've had since she did it two nights ago, and that must be, oh... I dunno, say ... ten or maybe twenty. There was a group of them last night. Kids from some posh school, too shit scared to do it alone, so I said the others could watch while I showed one of them what it was all about. Christ, they were a real bunch of wankers--literally--but still, they paid well."

Claudia said nothing. She was used to Katriona by now and knew how much she liked to shock her.

Firmly refusing to be sidetracked, she sat down. Katriona had steadfastly refused to give them any personal details about herself, and it was part of Claudia's job to do what she could to find out something--anything--about her background and her family.

"You must have parents, Katriona," she began.

"They--'

"Must I?" Katriona interrupted her bitterly.

"Why? Because the rule book says so? Well, I've got news for you. Life isn't always played by the rules."

"But you must have someone. A mother... a father ... grandparents..."

"Grandparents." Katriona gave a bitter yelp of laughter.

"Christ, if I had, they'd be ancient. My mother was forty-seven when she had me--I was a miracle baby. They thought they couldn't have children, you see.

They'd been married twenty- six years when I arrived. Perhaps someone should have told them that they needed to have sex a bit sooner than they did. "

"They must have loved you very much," Claudia suggested gently.

"Must they? I wouldn't know. My mother was still in shock from the trauma of the neighbours knowing that she'd slept with my father. She died... a heart attack, because having me had weakened her heart, you see. She was just too damned old, that was the truth of it."

Although Claudia winced at the cruelty in Katriona's voice, she forced herself not to make any comment other than saying quietly, "What about your father?"

"My father... Oh, he was a saint," Katriona told her cynically.

"Everyone said so, and so it must be true, mustn't it? Can't think how they produced me, can you?"

"Is he still alive?" Claudia pressed her.

Katriona shrugged. She had injected herself just before Claudia's visit and the drug was al and Betray 143 ready beginning to take effect. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to talk about her bloody parents.

"I don't know and I certainly don't care. Why should I? He never cared about me. His bloody school mattered more to him than I did."

"His school?" Claudia questioned.

"He was a teacher. A housemaster," Katriona emphasised mockingly, her accent changing, mirroring the clear, well-modulated tones of Claudia's own voice.

"He taught at a private school--for boys. They didn't take girls, so I had to go to the local village school, but he taught me at home, as well. They... my parents... had originally met when they were both up at Oxford, and although they couldn't afford to send me to a private school, he was determined that I would get a place at my mother's old college."

"Which college was that?" Claudia asked her, guessing when Katriona made no response but simply closed her eyes and turned her head away, "Lady Margaret Hall. Somerville "Think you're bloody clever, don't you?" Katriona growled at her.

"What the hell does it matter which college it was? There was no way I was going there. If I had wanted to go to university, I'd have wanted it to be somewhere a hell of a lot more trendy than bloody Oxford.

Essex. somewhere like that, but he would never have agreed to that.

So far as he was concerned, it was Oxford or nothing. Even Cambridge wouldn't have been good enough. "

Claudia said nothing but she could hear the bitterness and the anger beneath the seeming contempt in the other girl's voice.